Greece wants reparations from Germany for WWII

[Jeep]

In my uneducated not modern economist opinion Greece is a prime example of what happens when government becomes the chief driver of the economy. Government DOES NOT PRODUCE A SINGLE THING. IT IS A TAKER. When a society reaches a point where the government supplies the jobs and pension s it's pretty much game over. Lots of government jobs, lots of people drawing government supplied pensions = fewer people paying taxes. Throw in the whole people simply refusing to pay taxes and you have mess. The only folks who will benefit from this FUBAR situation are a select few who will pillage the remaining assets before the place either symbolically or really burns down.

How far behind them are we (USA)? Stack up all the tax consumers (fed, state, local government employees and retirees, welfare rats, WIC card spenders.....) and see how the ratio of those to producers. The number might scare the shit out of you.

I don't know about your opinion being "uneducated." A lot of people would say that the reason we have never really gotten out of the 2008-09 recession is that we dramatically increased the size and cost of government at the federal (and often state) level. My increasingly blue east-coast state keeps raising taxes to pay for our increasing (and wholly unionized) state government workforce, and for some strange and completely unpredictable reason jobs keep leaving the state. Our current brilliant plan is to raise taxes some more on the theory that will finally fix the problem.

If that doesn't work my guess is that we will be building a wall to keep people from leaving the state given that the purpose of the people is to support their government.

[Kyle Reese]

Greece introduces cashpoint tax in desperate bid to raise revenue and stop run on banks as country teeters on brink of bankruptcy

[BaiHu]

*SNIP*.

If that doesn't work my guess is that we will be building a wall to keep people from leaving the state given that the purpose of the people is to support their government.

Which they'll have to raise taxes in order to do - lol! Sorry, couldn't resist...

[GardoneVT]

I don't know about your opinion being "uneducated." A lot of people would say that the reason we have never really gotten out of the 2008-09 recession is that we dramatically increased the size and cost of government at the federal (and often state) level. My increasingly blue east-coast state keeps raising taxes to pay for our increasing (and wholly unionized) state government .

Obama's approach to economic "stimulus" was enacting legislation to create more infrastructure projects and long term technology investment. All the while imposing Obamacare and not lowering taxes.

Is it any wonder we sit in stagnation? Then again... a cynical mind would say a Chicago politico would only care about the economic welfare of his contributors, hence infrastructure contracts versus tax cuts.


Were I in office i'd cut taxes on businesses -including The Big Bad Corporations - incentivize business loans and capital investments, and buy a really nice fitted suit so I can look good when Rachel Maddow and Co call me a corporate sell out.

[farscott]

If I was "King for a day", which will NEVER happen, I would enact legislation to do the following:

1) Finance infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, and Internet connectivity with fiber and RF links. The first two that we already have are in dire need of an upgrade and this is both a need and a way to employ lots of people. The latter is an investment in the future, similar to the rural electrification effort during the Great Depression.

2) Change the income tax to a flat tax with no exemptions, no deductions, and no income base or ceiling.

3) Add a VAT tax with same rate on everything with no exemptions, no deductions, and no ceiling on purchases.

4) Accurately report all liabilities of the government, so we can see how much in debt we are and how much each citizen owes

5) Deport every illegal alien and revise the immigration system so it works. People who are here legally get fast-tracked for citizenship and everyone deported goes to the bottom of the list. Time to reward those who did it legally and properly.

6) To go along with 5), harboring an illegal becomes a federal felony with fines up to $20k per event.

7) Legalize all drugs and tax the heck out of them. Let the cartels compete with Merck and Pfizer. On the flip side, felonies committed under the influence of these drugs in punishable by execution. Same with alcohol.

8) Eliminate the BATFE and DEA and move them into the FBI.

9) Assess the impact of all of these and adjust as necessary after a few years. No one plan is perfect, and no approach is either. I am sure that one, or more, or all of these will need to be changed.

[MDS]

If I was "King for a day", which will NEVER happen, I would enact legislation to do the following:

1) Finance infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, and Internet connectivity with fiber and RF links. The first two that we already have are in dire need of an upgrade and this is both a need and a way to employ lots of people. The latter is an investment in the future, similar to the rural electrification effort during the Great Depression.

2) Change the income tax to a flat tax with no exemptions, no deductions, and no income base or ceiling.

3) Add a VAT tax with same rate on everything with no exemptions, no deductions, and no ceiling on purchases.

4) Accurately report all liabilities of the government, so we can see how much in debt we are and how much each citizen owes

5) Deport every illegal alien and revise the immigration system so it works. People who are here legally get fast-tracked for citizenship and everyone deported goes to the bottom of the list. Time to reward those who did it legally and properly.

6) To go along with 5), harboring an illegal becomes a federal felony with fines up to $20k per event.

7) Legalize all drugs and tax the heck out of them. Let the cartels compete with Merck and Pfizer. On the flip side, felonies committed under the influence of these drugs in punishable by execution. Same with alcohol.

8) Eliminate the BATFE and DEA and move them into the FBI.

9) Assess the impact of all of these and adjust as necessary after a few years. No one plan is perfect, and no approach is either. I am sure that one, or more, or all of these will need to be changed.

I make a list like this sometimes. It's kind of like listing how I'd spend my money if I won the lottery. Or the basement game. "Paja mental."

[Jeep]

If I was "King for a day", which will NEVER happen, I would enact legislation to do the following:

1) Finance infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, and Internet connectivity with fiber and RF links. The first two that we already have are in dire need of an upgrade and this is both a need and a way to employ lots of people. The latter is an investment in the future, similar to the rural electrification effort during the Great Depression.

Before doing anything with infrastructure, you need to get rid of the Davis-Bacon Act, which generally means that government jobs cost something like twice as much as private ones. It (and its state analogues) are one of the main reasons why so much of our infrastructure is crumbling. (The required affirmative action set asides on most federal projects also drive up costs).

Then you probably want to look at your state's department of transportation before spending any new money. There is a very good chance that over the last 15 years it has spent much of the money it gets to fix roads and bridges on hiring new employees, because politicians like hiring new state employees, and much of the "road" budget is now funneled into an overstaffed and sclerotic bureaucracy, which has little interest in actually fixing problems (because, after all, if they are fixed, why will all those employees be needed).

Giving government agencies any new funds at all without first ensuring that the money will go to doing what it is supposed to do in a cost effective way is just throwing money down a rathole--witness, for example, the stimulus of 2009.

Of course, we had every reason to know that the stimulus was little more than a massive payoff to the government unions and contractors, when we were told it would cost $900 billion and add or protect 3 million jobs. None of the bright boys in the media did the math, but that comes to $300,000 a job--which is impossible unless most of the money is wasted. In the end, it is doubtful it added more than a relative handful of jobs, but the government unions and contractors were happy.

We aren't all that far off from becoming Greece (except, lucky us, we can print our own money and the rest of the world is eager to take those newly printed dollars off our hands).

[RevolverRob]

I make a list like this sometimes. It's kind of like listing how I'd spend my money if I won the lottery. Or the basement game. "Paja mental."

You, literally - listen to me - literally just ruined my productivity for yhe rest of this week.

-Rob

[Sensei]

If I was "King for a day", which will NEVER happen, I would enact legislation to do the following:

1) Finance infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, and Internet connectivity with fiber and RF links. The first two that we already have are in dire need of an upgrade and this is both a need and a way to employ lots of people. The latter is an investment in the future, similar to the rural electrification effort during the Great Depression.
sounds good to me

2) Change the income tax to a flat tax with no exemptions, no deductions, and no income base or ceiling.
why do you need an income tax if you have a VAT?

3) Add a VAT tax with same rate on everything with no exemptions, no deductions, and no ceiling on purchases.
See above

4) Accurately report all liabilities of the government, so we can see how much in debt we are and how much each citizen owes
Yep

5) Deport every illegal alien and revise the immigration system so it works. People who are here legally get fast-tracked for citizenship and everyone deported goes to the bottom of the list. Time to reward those who did it legally and properly.
I agree with the deportation half, but the only problem with our current immigration system is that we do not enforce the border or deport known illegals. Our current system as written would actually work very well in terms of attracting productive immigrants if we actually enforced the law.

6) To go along with 5), harboring an illegal becomes a federal felony with fines up to $20k per event.
Yep

7) Legalize all drugs and tax the heck out of them. Let the cartels compete with Merck and Pfizer. On the flip side, felonies committed under the influence of these drugs in punishable by execution. Same with alcohol.
Cartels will still exist to supply cheaper drugs on the black market just like how the mob provided untaxed alcohol and tobacco. Also, we both know there is no chance of expanding the death penality.

8) Eliminate the BATFE and DEA and move them into the FBI.
Overall no objection. However, there are some advantages to not having a single dominant federal police agency

9) Assess the impact of all of these and adjust as necessary after a few years. No one plan is perfect, and no approach is either. I am sure that one, or more, or all of these will need to be changed.
Excellent

[farscott]

My concern with only a VAT is that it would lower spending by upper-income individuals as they would defer spending to save the tax bill. In addition, having both a VAT and an income tax is "progressive" in a tax sense. Since people who make less spend more of their income as a percentage, having an income tax would keep higher earners still paying more while everyone still has skin in the game in funding the government.